Not His Home
by thein273
Summary: (Sequel to "Not His Type.") LEO VALDEZ remembers an important fact while at the Christmas party celebrating his resurrection and NICO DI ANGELO and WILL SOLACE'S new relationship: he will always be the seventh wheel. Three-shot chronicling the inevitable breakdown Leo needs to have and his recovery from it. ON HIATUS
1. Part I

**I will admit: I enjoyed writing "Not His Type" a lot more than I expected. It wasn't horrible writing something family-friendly with what I hoped was a reasonable portrayal of the characters reflective of my issues with, especially, the conclusion of **_**The Blood of Olympus. **_

**Someone asked for a story about the party Percy throws for Nico and Will after they get together, and I thought about making it an exclusively funny, amusing piece about friends being friends. Then I decided **_**this **_**would be better.**

**Suffice to say, one should not throw parties immediately after traumatizing wars expecting it to go off without a hitch.**

**Now for "Not His Home."**

* * *

**LEO VALDEZ remembers an important fact while at the Christmas party celebrating his resurrection and NICO DI ANGELO and WILL SOLACE'S new relationship: he will always be the seventh wheel.**

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**I own nothing. All rights go to Rick Riordan, Hyperion Books Inc., and other assorted copyright owners.**

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**Trigger Warning(s): Feelings of worthlessness, depressed thoughts, the decision to run away**

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PART I

_"No one ever discovers the depths of his own loneliness." - Georges Bernanos_

LEO WHOOPED FOR JOY WHEN HE PICKED UP ON HARLEY'S SIGNAL, urging Festus just a little faster until a familiar beach came into view. Calypso had only wrapped her arms tighter around his waist as they touched down.

Then freaking _Nico di Angelo _gleefully organized a camp-wide "Punch Leo Really Hard in His Face" event, awarding everyone a number while they lined up. And Leo thought he had gotten nasty bruises in The Giant War.

Meanwhile, Percy and Calypso conducted the most awkward greeting since the dawn of time, trying to pretend things _weren't _weirder than weird between them. Leo didn't know whether to berate Percy for his girlfriend's sake or try to point out to Calypso that Percy hadn't _meant _to be a forgetful jerk, he just was one, so he focused on getting the snot kicked out of him by everyone—including, to his utmost disbelief, _Chiron._

Leo glimpsed, then, Nico arguing animatedly with Will Solace. "Hey, they look friendly." He gestured at them. "Is that new?"

Percy grinned mischievously. "Yes," he said, "and it's also fate."

Calypso frowned at him. "Percy, what are you doing?"

"Calypso, _look _at them." He waved his hand their direction just in time for Will to stab his finger insistently into Nico's chest and Nico to twist his wrist away from him. "Oh, young love."

Leo gaped and looked back at Percy. "You call _that _love? Dude, I think they're gonna kill each other!"

"I think you mean _kiss._"

Leo blinked. "Bro, you are a total creep."

Percy held up his arms. "Okay, guilty, but Jason, the Stolls and I have a pool going for when they crack and start dating. It's gonna happen. Any _day _now."

Leo grabbed Percy's head and made him look at them. "Percy, I want you to look very closely at that. _That _is not romance. It's just not."

Calypso hummed. "Yes, because you and _I _got along so well at first?" She paused. "_Babe_?"

Percy choked. "What?"

Leo laughed. "Okay, fine, but you just yelled at me a lot."

Percy groaned. "Leo, ask Annabeth—she did stuff like that to me all the _time _when we first met. It's her way of flirting."

Leo started to argue, only to stop. "You know…" He looked back toward the would-be couple with a thoughtful expression. "If that's gonna be true for anyone, it's true of Nico and Annabeth." He turned back to Percy. "What're the odds?"

"Leo!" Calypso cried, aghast. "You cannot bet on your friend's love-life!"

"Hey, he gets happy, I get rich. It's a win-win." He winked.

"Three to one in favor of Will asking before the New Year."

Leo glanced over and considered. "Ah, what the heck?" He faced Percy and fished out a handful of drachmas, forking them over. Calypso looked disapproving. "I say Nico snaps before Christmas."

* * *

Christmas Eve, baby!

Leo found out because the Stoll brothers materialized in Bunker Nine with disgruntled expressions and sweet, sweet glided money. Calypso continued to flagrantly disapprove while they explained to him that Nico had just asked Will out, and no one would have known if Will had not loudly exclaimed, "Thank the gods, _yes_!" at the top of his lungs so loudly, Camp Jupiter probably heard.

And thus, Percy commandeered the Christmas party to double as a "finally my little cousin has a boyfriend and a smile on his face" party, adding, "and Leo finally came home after scaring us all out of our minds" as well. Which was how three banners ended up hanging up in the Dining Pavilion, reading "Merry Christmas," "Merry Resurrection," and "Merry Boyfriends."

Nico pretended to hate every minute of it, but everyone could see him suppressing a smile over the festivities. The Stolls kept trying to sneak mistletoe everywhere the lovebirds _happened _to be standing, and Nico pointedly ignored the plant. Leo drank way more soda than might have been healthy, burping and dancing to an eclectic soundtrack: Christmas music, _Spanish _Christmas music, plain Spanish music, and Italian rock bands.

"_Who _came up with this music?" Nico demanded at one point. "I legitimately have to kill them."

Will found somewhere else to be.

Leo laughed hysterically as they walked off. "Isn't this the best thing _ever_, Ca—?" But Calypso wasn't next to him.

Leo frowned and hunted her down, finding her sitting in the strawberry fields. "Hey," he greeted, frowning deeper at her melancholy expression. "What's wrong?"

"I miss Ogygia," she confessed.

Leo's heart sank. "What? But…you hated that place."

"Not completely." She reached out and touched a strawberry plant. It didn't react excitedly to her like it should have. "I hated being a prisoner, but the island itself was full of nature and life. Here…I suppose it isn't as bad as the world out there, but it's not the same."

Leo swallowed, heart staring to pound. "I-I…I didn't realize…"

"I'm not saying I want to go back if it means being trapped for all eternity again," she told him with a bittersweet smile. "I just…miss it." She stood up, walking over to him while being mindful of the field. "I also wish you wouldn't bet on your friends like this."

"It's all a joke, Cal," he said. "If Nico and Will had a problem with it, they'd say something. They know."

"That's the worst part!" Calypso cried. "I know what it feels like to have your love trivialized into some idle pastime. It _hurts_, but to imagine a world where such treatment is so commonplace, the _victims _don't care—it's preposterous."

Leo could only stare at her in shock.

"I want you to give that money to Nico and Will, Leo," she said. "Please. For me. For your own morality."

Leo gulped, mouth dry, and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I will. After the party. Tonight. I promise."

She sighed in relief. "Thank you. I…I really need to be alone right now, if you don't mind. I have a lot to think about."

Leo clenched his fist at his side. "'Course. I…I'll just go."

But as he drifted off, he couldn't help but feel like his own punchline. For as long as he could remember, Leo had been alone. He _killed his own mother_, and sure, some earthen goddess tricked him into doing it, but what did that matter? Then he flitted from foster home to foster home, unable to _ever _belong, until the Wilderness School introduced him to Jason and Piper, and through them, Camp Half-Blood. He thought he'd found somewhere he could _really _call home, but then all anyone seemed to want from him had been the _Argo II. _Leo himself never mattered. Just his ship. Now there was no ship anymore. The war was over. _All _of his friends had paired off, even if Nico di Angelo, and that should have been fine. He had Calypso. What did it matter if everyone else in his life had their other half who made them way happier than Leo ever had?

"_Preposterous." _The word bounced around in Leo's head, giving him an unbearable headache he couldn't handle. Had she been calling the world preposterous or her awful boyfriend who thought it was funny to throw money at someone's happiness? He thought back to his mother; she wouldn't have been happy with him for betting on their relationship either. Come to think about it, she wouldn't have been happy with him for anything he'd done since that day in the workshop. Running away, causing everyone nothing but heartache, throwing a wrench into a perfectly happy relationship because he wanted a girlfriend…what had his great contribution to the Prophecy of Seven been again?

Oh, right! Dying.

And he couldn't even do _that _right.

"_You will always be the outsider, the seventh wheel. You will never find a place among your brethren." _Leo should have known better than to forget a goddess' warning just because he found the greatest, kindest, smartest, prettiest girl in the whole world. He had always been destined to stand out, too awkward, too weird, too stupid to ever have a prayer of _belonging _like his other, braver friends. His better friends.

For years, he'd had a checklist—step one, tell jokes. If that fails, go to step two and run away as far as you can. Then step three—fire. But those last two options switched places at some point; he started embracing his fire, more readily turning to it than the unfathomable option of leaving his friends behind.

Now, it had finally come time for step three.

Leo didn't go back to the Dining Pavilion. He wasn't thinking about where his feet might be carrying him. He just let them take him. A tongue of flame danced off the tip of his finger as he sank into darker and darker parts of the wood. He triggered the entrance to Bunker Nine in a daze.

Festus' ruby eyes lit up when it opened. He lifted his head and tilted it at Leo, creaking curiously as Leo stumbled inside.

"I'm sorry, Festus," Leo choked out, grabbing a backpack and starting to stuff everything useful he could get his hands on into it. "I have to leave. Harley and the others will take great care of you, I promise."

Festus' creaks turned panicked, trying to talk Leo out of it.

Leo just shook his head. "I have to do this, boy." Now tears were streaming down his cheeks in a hurry. Great. "I thought I'd belong here, but I was just being an idiot. Like I'm always being an idiot." He shook his head. "Calypso's mad at me. She doesn't even want to talk to me. Jason and Piper might care, but they're so wrapped up in each other's faces…and why shouldn't they be?" His voice turned bitter as he shoved even more junk into the backpack, choking on a sob. "They're a couple perfect people with this perfect relationship. Jason's got _both _camps just clamoring to give him somewhere to stay forever and ever. It's great. It is. It's just…it's dandy. He deserves it. And Piper is the perfect person, just so…so _kind _and _caring _and she never says the wrong thing and she never messes up and she always saves the day and everyone loves her, but no one will ever love me no matter what I do or how hard I try and I'm just so _tired_!"

Leo whirled with a scream, throwing a fireball at the wall. It extinguished as soon as it collided with the metal, but a few curls of smoke remained. He panted, struggling against the tears pouring down his face.

He looked back at Festus and wandered over, stroking his snout. "I'm sorry I can't bring you with me, Festus," he said. "You're maybe the only friend I ever really had. But you'll be happier without a screwup like me hanging around."

Leo threw together a quick recorder, gave it a short goodbye, and zipped up the backpack with a sense of finality. Before he could forget, he dumped his earnings from the pool on the workbench next the recorder. He clutched the backpack close for a moment. Then he threw it over his shoulders and marched to the door, unable to bear a more formal goodbye to his closest, surest friend without breaking down completely.

No one noticed him slipping through the darkness. He stood on the top of Half-Blood Hill and spared one glance at the valley below. The Dining Pavilion glowed with light. He could hear a cheesy Christmas tune all the way from here.

He glanced over to the lake, where he had crash-landed his first day. The forges, where he met his first real family since his mother. The charred patch of ground marking the spot of his insincere sacrifice.

"Adios, mi casa."

He slipped through the barrier, and for once, he had to look back.

* * *

**Well, I did that. No, that isn't the end. There's more to come. Yes, it was almost pure angst. Sorry.**


	2. Part II

**I decided it would make the most sense to cluster this whole Leo debacle into a single story broken into a few chunks. **

**I looked for more canonical information on Leo's abusive foster mother, but I couldn't even track down the brief moment in **_**The Blood of Olympus **_**where he mentions her to see if anything concrete gets described beyond her name. I adlibbed. Much apology.**

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**JASON GRACE hears a recording that breaks his heart. LEO VALDEZ remembers how it feels to miss home. EVERYONE loses their minds with worry.**

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PART II

"_I have learned now that while those who speak about one's miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more." – C.S. Lewis_

JASON DIDN'T THINK THE PARTY WENT WELL.

For starters, Nico's good mood abruptly evaporated after the billionth tease about his sexuality and love life. The ground cracked open, swallowing a table, and zombified hands sprouted from the dirt to terrify attendees. Nico bled away into shadow after that grand production, and Will sprinted toward Cabin Thirteen as fast as his feet would carry him, afraid Nico had dissolved into darkness from abusing his powers again.

Then, when everyone gathered to deliberate and investigate, "everyone" included all the Seven with the exception of Percy and Leo, who were nowhere to be seen. Annabeth, who could scarcely be found away from her boyfriend's side anymore, refused to answer questions about his whereabouts and insisted they focus on Nico.

No one had any idea where Leo had gone.

Reyna screamed her head off at all of them for triggering him, and Jason sincerely feared for his life until she stormed off toward the Hades cabin. Her time traveling with Nico and Coach Hedge really fortified a bond between them.

Jason decided to give Nico a little space, but he couldn't stop hovering in sight of his cabin anxiously, hoping he hadn't just destroyed his friendship with his cousin.

Around the middle of the following day, Will walked out, wiping beads of sweat off his forehead with a heavy sigh. "He calmed down," he told Jason, "but you guys really upset him."

"Can I talk to him?" Jason knew he was sparking a little from worry.

Will nodded.

Jason knocked on the door.

Reyna answered, only to stop and glare at him. "I do not care if you were my closest friend and confidante for years, you upset him. _Go away._"

"Reyna, stop." Nico appeared next to her and looked at Jason. His already pale face had gotten streaky, eyes dull and tired. He didn't look steady on his feet. "What do you want, Jason?"

"To apologize," he said immediately. "Nico, I swear, Percy and I just wanted you to have a good time and celebrate your relationship. We should have guessed you might not appreciate all the attention and put something smaller together. I don't really know what the Stolls wanted, but you terrified them, either way." He tried a smile, but it wavered on his face.

Nico sighed. "I know you guys didn't mean anything by it," he said. "But you have to learn that not everyone's happy medium involves regular socialization."

Jason winced. "We will. I promise. Everyone's worried about you. Annabeth would have come with me, but she thought it would be better if we did this one at a time."

Nico chuckled despite himself, which perked Jason up. "Guessing Percy only let you come because Annabeth threatened him?"

Jason faltered and shifted. "I, uh…no." He ran a hand through his hair. "Percy was already gone when you had your…moment. I haven't seen him. But somebody else probably already tracked him down and told him. He'll be here soon, I'm sure."

Nico frowned in concern. Jason wanted to reassure him everything with their cousin was fine; he probably just got carried away talking to the fish again. But why had he disappeared from the party in the first place?

After ensuring his preserved relationship with Nico, Jason let Hazel know she could talk to him now. Annabeth was next in line, and to Jason's disbelief, she still had no idea where Percy had gone and didn't seem keen to track him down. None of the others had any idea what happened to him either.

Miranda Gardiner told Jason Calypso was already tending the strawberry plants when she got there that morning to check on them. Figuring Calypso had to have an idea where Leo had gone, he approached her. Probably Bunker Nine, working hard on whatever his next brainchild was.

Jason hoped.

Calypso glanced up at him and smiled. "Hello, Jason."

Jason hovered awkwardly on the edge of the field. "Uh…I know we haven't talked much since you got here, which feels a little dumb, if I think about it, because Leo and I are so close we're like brothers, and speaking of Leo, do you know where he is?"

Calypso smiled. "Likely making amends with Nico di Angelo and Will Solace. I asked him to give them the money he won."

Jason frowned. "Why?"

Calypso's eyes turned harsh. "Because to bet on love is barbaric."

Now Jason just felt like a jerk, because he may have bet on Will snapping and won nothing from the wager, but he'd put his own denarii in that pool like everyone else. "You're right," he said, trying not to look too guilty. "But, like…Nico kinda lost his temper last night at the party, and we've all been worried about him, but I haven't seen Leo anywhere."

Calypso frowned. "I…I don't know then. I hope he's okay." She considered. "He may have started working to pass the time and lost track." But she sounded as worried as Jason felt.

"Yeah," he said, trying to sound confident. "Definitely. I'll just drop by the bunker and fill Leo in on everything."

Jason headed straight for the forest in a hurry, heart already starting to pound erratically against his chest as the woods grew darker and darker. He pulled out the supercharged flashlight Leo had given him to cut through the shadow this deep, trying not to let his mind find every worst-case scenario it could. Jason and Piper _met _Leo through a school to rehabilitate problematic youth after he established a persistent pattern of running away from his foster homes, but that made sense; Leo went through life feeling like a freak for years until he found out he was part of a diverse community of heroes and his mother's tragic fate had not been his fault. He belonged at Camp Half-Blood. He loved Camp Half-Blood almost more than Festus. He had no reason to run away. This place was his home.

Jason blasted the stone wall façade leading into the bunker with his mini, weak blowtorch. A Greek _Eta _glowed before the door outlined itself and Jason pushed inside, already screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Leo!" he called. "Leo, stuff went really wrong last night, and—"

Leo wasn't there. No one was there—just Festus, laying on the ground at the far end of the workshop with his massive bronze hand resting on his claws. If machines could look sad, Festus managed it.

"Festus?" Jason said, no longer trying to conceal his fear. "Festus, buddy, where's Leo?"

Festus snorted. He turned his head as smoke curled out of his nostrils, toward one of Leo's favorite workbenches. Jason raced over, finding several of Leo's smaller inventions missing from the tabletop. A handful of drachmas sat there next to a tiny cylindrical device with a button at the end.

Jason somehow knew what it was before activating it, but that made no difference to the cracking sounds of his heart when Leo's scratchy voice reached his ears.

"Yo, everybody." Shoddy resolution and suppressed tears distorted Leo's words almost too much to comprehend. He must have realized that, because after a moment, the next thing he said was, "I'll keep this short. Harley, Festus is yours. You two were made for each other. And this one's for my siblings—don't make Jake or Nyssa counselor now that I'm gone, 'cuz they hated that gig when they had it. Whoever gets the position should want it, 'kay? I wish I'd stuck around long enough to finish the presents I made all my apocalypse-foiling peeps, 'specially Jason and Piper, but I know better than to overstay my welcome. Cal, I freaking love you. Don't forget it, even if your curse flipped on its head when I showed up. Hold an auction for the rest of my stuff, I guess." Leo choked on a sob then. He strangled out the last two words before the recording ended.  
"Peace out."

Festus' mournful creak perfectly summarized the emotions Jason didn't know how to express as he looked around Bunker Nine—and for the first time, he hated everything he saw, because none of it would ever compare to the friend who abandoned him.

~1~

Leo wondered if all children of Hephaestus had an emotion switch they could flip when things got hard. He hadn't triggered his in a while, but when the crushing mountains of grief started weighing on his shoulders, he fell back on old habits.

Hard.

The tears he hadn't been able to restrain stopped flowing. His face relaxed into a steely countenance of carelessness. His pained steps grew surer, taking the path in lengthy strides. By the time anyone back at Camp Half-Blood found his message, he would be a speck on somebody else's horizon.

But this time, shutting off his feelings and _leaving _them that way was much harder. Leo kept glimpsing monsters running through the woods, Imperial gold weapons the Roman troops left on their way to invade Long Island, pegasi flitting overhead. No matter where he fixed his gaze, something else reminded him of what he was leaving behind. Regret burned bright in his gut. Maybe he'd overreacted. Maybe Calypso meant it when she said she just needed time. Maybe the others didn't want him to go.

He shook his head sternly. He couldn't afford to get caught up in sentimentality. He had to push forward. Stopping wasn't an option. Turning back _really _wasn't an option. His friends would tell him he had it all wrong if he went back now. They'd worry. They'd try to help him feel better, less like an outsider, more loved.

But it was _Leo's _job to make people feel better, and if Leo couldn't do his job anymore…well, just ask his siblings what happens to a rusty part you can't use ever again.

The dusty backroad hardened to asphalt after a couple miles. Leo followed the highway until he noticed cars starting to pass in the direction he was headed. He held out a thumb as he continued on.

A truck slowed and pulled up to the side of the road next to him. "What's a kid your age doing all alone out here?"

Leo hesitated. "Oh, ya know, I got separated from my circus caravan of freaks. Their next show's in the city, so I can meet with them there." He hoped the joke would defuse the guy's suspicions.

The trucker only frowned more. "Where are your parents, kid?"

"The Twilight Zone." Leo mimicked the theme music and waggled his fingers in front of his face.

The trucker shook his head. "Look, kid, if you're in some kinda trouble back home, your best chance is the cops. Somebody your age shouldn't be alone." He reached for his cellphone, and Leo felt a surge of panic catch in his chest.

"Wait!" His mind worked furiously. He patted himself down for something he could use to reassure the man or at least stop him from calling the police. He found a drachma.

He must have missed it when emptying out his pockets of the winnings. His momentary flash of guilt subsided when he saw the greedy way the driver's eyes lit up.

Leo wavered, but he told himself Nico and Will got most of his winnings. He needed this single gold coin for himself. It wasn't that bad. He held up the drachma. "Take me into the city and don't call the cops on me, this is yours."

The trucker hesitated.

Then Leo spotted a picture taped above his stereo. His brain provided everything he needed to know before he had to ask. He let out a low whistle. "That baby's not going to come cheap, you know," he said. "This little nugget could get you a lot closer to that sweet ride."

The trucker's eyes glinted. "You know trucks?"

Leo laughed. "'_Do I know trucks_?' Dude, you're talking to the foremost expert on all things truck-y."

He hesitated before sighing. "Okay, get in. I won't call the cops."

Leo grinned triumphantly and jumped in the bed of the truck. A few minutes later, they were off down the highway toward certain freedom.

~2~

Piper hadn't expected Percy to reappear in a blind panic.

He skidded to a stop, eyes wild. "Where's Nico?" he demanded. "Is he okay? Did he get sick again? What happened?"

"Whoa!" Piper held up her hands. "He's fine. I mean, he's not happy. I guess the party got too exciting for him and he snapped. Everyone's taking turns apologizing to him right now. Hazel took hours, so Annabeth only just got a chance. You can go after her."

Percy screamed in frustration. "I'm such an _idiot_! I didn't think. Why did I think Nico would enjoy that? It's _nothing like him. _I could have gotten him killed! What is _wrong with me_?"

Piper took a step back. She'd seen some of the things Percy could do when you got him angry enough, and behind him, the Long Island Sound had started to churn restlessly. "Okay, Percy?" she started. "I need you to calm down." She didn't like powering her words with charmspeak, but she wouldn't like a hurricane ripping through Camp Half-Blood either.

Percy exhaled and relaxed. "Sorry." He shifted. "I just…I don't wanna mess up with him again, you know?"

Piper chewed her lip. "Yeah." She glanced back toward Cabin Thirteen. "You know, I don't think Nico would mind much if you _and _Annabeth talked to him at the same time."

To Piper's surprise—and concern—Percy flinched. "I—no. No, that's fine. Nico should get a bit of distance from people. I don't want to overwhelm him again."

Piper frowned. "Percy, are you and Annabeth okay?"

Percy's pained, dark expression only heightened Piper's worry, but before she could press him for an explanation, Jason literally _flew into him. _Percy staggered, reaching for Riptide on instinct, when he recognized his friend. Jason held a tiny cylinder in his hand with crazed eyes that sparked like a rainstorm, panting.

"Jason?" Piper caught him. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Jason thrust the cylinder at Piper. "Leo," he said, voice tight. "He got into a fight with Calypso last night and left _that._"

Piper frowned and studied it. "Uh…so?"

"It's a recording!" Jason looked between Piper and Percy frantically, and…oh gods, was he _crying_? "Leo ran away!"

~3~

Unsurprisingly, the skies became a hotspot for scouting pegasi by mid-morning two days after Leo left. He'd expected that.

He hugged the shadows—Nico couldn't jump out at him with his staunch power restrictions—and hung out in dingy drug dens when his friends got too close. He didn't take any unnecessary risks. More than a few monsters caught him, but Leo used his combination of smooth charm and mad skills to take them out. Gaea's resounding defeat at Camp Half-Blood had certainly cut down on demigod-hungry forces, that was for sure.

He'd done everything he needed to do. He'd been careful. But when the Fates decide your time is up…well, what are you supposed to do?

It happened when he ducked inside a supermarket for some decent heat. He'd been trolling the junk food section, looking for something small he could lift, when a familiar woman with meticulously curled dark hair and a nice blouse rounded the corner pushing a shopping cart.

Leo's eyes widened when he recognized her. He ducked his face and tried to disappear before anything terrible happened—like, say, she recognized him _back_—but he didn't have that kind of luck.

"_Leo_?"

Leo flinched but kept walking quickly. If he didn't answer to his name, maybe she would assume she'd imagined things, continue with her shopping trip.

But then Teresa Heyman hurried up to cut him off. Leo lurched to a stop. His fingers twitched toward his toolbelt. His heart hammered against his chest. His former foster mother just grinned broadly at him. "It _is _you! Oh, Leo, we were so worried. How are you feeling, sweetheart? You look hungry. What do you want to eat?"

Leo wasn't tricked by the sweet greeting. He remembered what happened the first time he made fun of her last name when there weren't social workers around. Teresa could pretend all the livelong day to be the nicest, kindest foster parent the world over, but her prisoners—sorry, _fosters_—knew better.

"I have another home now, Teresa," Leo lied. "I should get back to them."

Teresa stopped him. "Leo, you're filthy, you're carrying that backpack, and I kept track of you with that nice social worker of yours. Nobody's seen you since you vanished from that field trip at that new school of yours."

Leo ground his teeth together. His social worker, Ms. Hewitt, meant the best when she tried to set him up with good foster homes, but she didn't trust him. She believed the people watching him a million times more than she believed him, even if he showed up at her office with a black eye. The Heymans had been her favorite suggestion of them all—the perfect suburban family, just what Leo needed to straighten out. Their picturesque mask fooled her and everyone else all the way to the bank.

"What are you doing in New York?" he demanded.

Teresa sighed. "Well, if you would believe it, a few of our kids got together and started telling horrible lies about how we were hurting them all. Troubled youngsters." She shook her head sadly. "The good news is, after we moved and started over, we convinced the system what kind of terrible nonsense that was. We've started taking in needy children like you again."

Leo started backing up.

Teresa's eyes lit up. "That's an idea! Why don't you come home with me, sweetie? We'll get you registered again. That way, you won't have to get used to any smelly old fosters you don't know. I'm sure these kids will love your sense of humor as much as we do."

Leo braced for a fight. "No thank you," he said darkly.

Teresa's expression turned harsh. "Now, now, sweetie, think this through. If you just run away again, I'll know exactly what to tell the police when I call them. Your best chance at avoiding time in juvey after that _terrible _prank you played on your classmates down at the Grand Canyon would be coming with me. I'll talk to them, convince them you were just acting out for attention, and what you really need is a strong, motherly hand to set you straight again."

Leo's palms sweat profusely. Flying hundreds of feet off the ground, staring down the Dirt Lady herself, getting ready to go out in the blaze of glory—that hadn't been half as terrifying as this. There had been a reason Leo ran from Teresa as fast as his feet would carry him; he hadn't had other options. She was smart. She knew how to play the system like her personal harp. She'd backed Leo into a corner again, but this time, once she brought him back into her web? She'd take every precaution she had to take to ensure he never got out again.

No giant, no crazy goddess, no impossible sorceress or unstoppable monster compared to the danger of a human woman with a pretty voice and no morals.

"If you even _think _about it, crazy lady, I'll—"

Teresa arched an eyebrow. "You'll what? Leo, you barely avoided charges for your mother's murder when you were eight. What happened on your field trip, now, too…do you really think the police would buy any story you have to give them about me? You'll be throwing your life away if you attack me and you know it. What about that quaint repair shop you always wanted to build for your mother? No one would ever do business with a felon."

Leo stared at her, realizing he'd just run out of tricks. Nothing could save him now. Teresa had him where she wanted him—defenseless, hopeless, and unfathomably scared.

Leo hung his head in defeat. "You win."

Teresa steered him toward the checkout line and his new-old life as a charity case with attitude problems no one would ever believe.

~4~

Even with Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood cooperating to find Leo, they had no luck whatsoever. Most of Leo's friends had started school again, but their homework never got done with how hard they looked for him. Still, even the most optimistic had to consider the possibility Leo had gotten caught out there by a monster without a handy vial of Physician's Cure to bring him back.

At least, until Annabeth's Foreign Politics lecture got interrupted by her cellphone ringing in the middle of a discussion reflecting the benefits of a communist society. Her teacher glared at her.

"Sorry, Mr. Peterson!" she cried. "It could be an emergency! I'll just take this really fast!"

She slipped into the hall and checked the caller ID. She didn't recognize it, but one of her friends might have borrowed a phone somewhere to call her about Leo. She pressed the phone to her ear. "Hello?"

"Help. Me."


	3. Part III

**Trigger Warning(s): Child abuse, hospitalization, loss of control that results in serious harm (albeit to a horrible person), a quality psychiatrist that gives a tentative personality disorder diagnosis in order to help a character, Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis**

* * *

PART III

"I don't know what living a balanced life feels like. When I am sad, I don't cry, I pour. When I am happy, I don't smile, I glow. When I am mad, I don't yell, I burn." – Rupi Kaur

PIPER DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO HOPE ANYMORE.

When Jason thrust that horrible recording into her hands, she hadn't believed his frantic claims about Leo's disappearance. She even tried to insist something had left the small recorder at Bunker Nine to deceive them after kidnapping him, but too many pieces added up to one conclusion: they never should have trusted Leo on his own.

When Piper had even met Leo—in reality, now that she could finally factor that into their relationship again—she'd caught him attempting to sneak out of the Wilderness School to embark into the great unknown again. She thought reaching out an olive branch of sincere friendship had dissolved his aspirations to run away; she knew finding his real home at Camp Half-Blood had to have.

Yet here they were, weeks into the hunt for Leo Valdez, collapsing onto a bench in the middle of Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, New York, nerves eroded thinner than Piper remembered them ever being throughout the entire war. She adjusted her choppy hair into a semi-tame clip on the back of her head, accepting the water bottle Jason handed her from the giant backpack he carried around with all their supplies.

"We're never going to find him, are we?" she found herself asking as Jason ripped into a bag of beef jerky. The question caught him off-guard enough that half its contents spilled onto the grass underneath their feet. She turned to meet his electric eyes with her own.

For a while, he stayed silent, just staring at her. Then, almost inaudibly, he said, "Not unless he wants us to."

"But we're never going to stop looking, are we." That wasn't a question.

Jason didn't answer.

For eight weeks, demigods had scoured the countryside for any sign of the elusive inventor. Camp Jupiter deployed eagles to cover longer distances. Camp Half-Blood flooded the streets and the skies with scouts, some flying on horseback, others using whatever available transportation they could scrounge. The Stoll brothers stole the camp van out from under Argus' (many) eyes the second they heard. Apparently, they hadn't just found Leo a funny partner-in-crime; they fully adopted him into their misfit family.

Meanwhile, every member of the Seven—except for Frank, who held down the fort at Camp Jupiter while regularly Iris-Messaging his friends for updates—searched everywhere they could for the comedic backbone of their troop. Annabeth juggled her studies with the hunt while Percy, now her ex-boyfriend (neither of them would explain the sudden schism between them), just stopped attending classes. Hazel burned lines through the earth on Arion's back. Piper and Jason, of course, stayed close together as they prayed for a lucky break. Nico convinced Will to loosen his medical restrictions for the extent of the hunt. Coach Hedge would have thrown himself in the search as much as the rest of them if he didn't have little Chuck to worry about.

Frank would be joining the search soon, as soon as Reyna helped him calm the rabble in the Bay Area. But even with his help, Piper didn't want to waste energy on hope.

At least, until a dozen tiny rainbows interrupted her reverie, accompanied by a pleasant woman's voice. Please deposit one drachma.

Piper glanced at Jason, who fished one of the gilded coins out from the baggie they kept it all in. He flipped it into the rainbow.

Annabeth's torso appeared in front of them, hazy yet clear enough to make out the scratch on her cheek, lightly bleeding. She panted while she braced against the counter she must have set her prism on for the call.

"Annabeth!" Piper shot forward. "What happened?"

"Monster attack," she said breathlessly, waving her hand dismissively. "Not important."

"Not important?" Jason echoed incredulously. "Why the—?"

"Leo called me," Annabeth interrupted, lifting her head to lock eyes with Piper. She forgot how to breathe. Miniature storms leveled nations in Annabeth's gaze. "He's back with one of his old foster families, a—" Her voice strained and thinned, as if stretched to its breaking point by repressed rage. "Abusive." Jason almost crushed Piper's hand in his grip. She held back just as tightly. "He just gave me an address, but judging by the fact he reached out to me and couldn't barely grit out a full sentence, I'd say we need a team when we go in. He's nearest you two."

"Where?" Piper and Jason demanded as one.

Annabeth relayed the address. "Nico and Will will meet you there. Percy's driving like a madman." Her voice caught on her ex's name. "I guess Frank's nearby with Hazel, so they should be there pretty soon, too."

Jason shoved to his feet, barely remembering to scoop up their backpack. Piper hurried after him without bothering to dismiss the Iris-Message.

Annabeth called after them. "Send those disgusting mortals to Tartarus," she said.

Piper planned on it.

* * *

Will had his arms wrapped around Nico's skinny frame when Jason sprinted around the corner of Rutland Road. While inarguably better fed still, Will had his work cut out for him restraining his smaller boyfriend from throwing himself at the front door.

"They're taking too long!" Nico screamed. "Leo's in trouble! Let me—"

"Ni—Nico di Angelo!" Will grunted. "You cannot send two mortals screaming down to your father with an express ticket to the Fields of Punishment! They're mortals!"

"Watch me!"

"We're here!" Jason shouted, doubling his speed—less in hopes of preventing Nico from murdering the homeowners, more to stop him from killing himself enacting justice.

Nico ripped away from Will, who stumbled. "Where in Hades have you been?" he hissed vehemently. "Leo could be in there, half-dead—"

"Stop helping," Piper spat. Even Nico, ever the unphased, faltered at the venom laced through her voice. "Are the others here yet?"

Will lifted Nico, kicking his legs up not unlike a misbehaving toddler in a display that would have otherwise had Jason rolling around on the pavement from laughter, into the air with a strangled cry. He dropped him behind him, and Jason stepped in to bar Nico's path to the quaint, rustic brick home, framed by a charming brick and white fence as if its inhabitants were not drains on the system.

"Jason, let m—"

"Swear," he snapped. "Swear on the River Styx you're not going to use your powers on these people."

"They're beating Leo!" he screeched.

"Then I'll kill them!" The words spilled out of Jason's mouth before he could stop them, but no part of him was surprised to find he meant them. Leo had transcended the role of brother to him a long time ago. You couldn't normalize their relationship with terms like that after everything they'd gone through together, and anyone who thought hurting Leo Valdez would be acceptable would learn something else entirely when Jason Grace summoned a bolt of lightning down on their heads. "But we will not lose you because you were reckless with your health. Not for these people, Nico. They're not worth it."

A caramel hair with a luscious black mane screeched to a halt next to Jason. He turned as Hazel and Frank hopped off, Frank—for once—unphased by his girlfriend's supersonic steed as he marched up to Jason. "Where's Percy?" he demanded.

The praetorship had treated him well. The insecurity Jason remembered halting his every step on the Argo II had melted away, supernatural bulk thanks to Mars' blessing no longer astounding to anyone seeing him. Of course Frank Zhang best resembled the product of a union between a brick wall and a grizzly bear. Most of the time, he made up for that intimidating physical presence by being a teddy bear under the surface.

Not today.

"Not here yet," Will said, "and there's no way we're keeping Mr. and Mr. Murderous back from that house another second if he doesn't—"

A familiar powder-blue Prius whipped around the corner, rubber leaving black streaks across the asphalt as it screeched along to a sudden halt, double-parked next to the classic soccer mom grey van in front of the foster home. The ignition died with abrupt brutality, as though forfeiting after extensive torture at the hands of its ruthless driver.

"Percy's here," Hazel announced unnecessarily, petting Arion's mane with a disturbing darkness in her gaze. Most of the time, you wouldn't know Hazel and Nico were related. It was easy enough to chalk their close relationship up to a sibling-like dynamic, but her warm chocolate skin across his warming ashy tones and her unrelenting sweetness did not add up against his dark glowers, gloomy disposition, and dangerous nature.

Until moments like this, where all of Pluto's ruthlessness blazed behind those gentle features, obsidian fires lit behind brilliant gold eyes.

Percy threw the driver's side door open, slamming it behind him, and Jason turned to greet him quickly—only to stagger.

Percy had never been the cleanliest person, of course. His cabin always looked like one of his hurricanes had ripped through it, and Jason had, on several occasions, talked to him while he sniffed a shirt thrown haphazardly aside and shrugged, even if it had a giant stain on the front. Befriending him helped Jason work past some of his ingrained rigidity when it came to chores, shirking them once in a while if it meant unwinding with friends when he couldn't, otherwise, but Percy's bad hygiene had reason. He showered like a human regularly. In fact, he loved to shower, and he loved to bathe more. He wore clothes washed in the past week. Jason could not remember a single time except after getting him out of Tartarus where his hair looked greasy.

So it didn't just shock Jason when Percy stormed up to them, a notable smell wafting off his body, with shiny, knotted hair working its way to dreadlocks, in a blue shirt on its way to black from filth.

"This it?" Percy asked, glaring at the brick facade with little storms brewing in his eyes.

"Are you okay?" The words spilled out of Jason's mouth before he could stop them. He may have been here for Leo, but seeing Percy in such disrepair, he wanted if their chat after encountering Polybotes underwater had helped him as much as Jason assumed.

Percy flinched and looked at Jason like he'd just insulted his mother. "Seriously?"

"We don't have time for this," Nico interrupted, stepping forward. Despite the authority in his voice, he eyed Percy with concern, himself. "We need in there and we couldn't get any of the Hermes'—"

Frank handled that problem in a flash, charging through the open fence, up the steps of the porch, into the locked door. It exploded open with a bang, cries of alarm ringing out inside.

Jason exchanged a look with the others—except for Hazel, who just watched Frank with the eyes of a girl in love—and marched up behind Frank.

A man with auburn hair flecked with random bits of silver burst into the living room, lips spread as if to shout, until Frank slammed him against the wall with a snarl. "Where's Leo?" he demanded. "Leo Valdez? Did you lock him up? Did you—?"

A familiar scream of pain had Jason sprinting. He vaguely registered the thud when Frank dropped the patriarch to the floor with a solid hit to the jaw.

It was a dining room, four kids pressed hard against the wall with bowls of cereal abandoned on a mahogany table and an aging woman with her dark hair still in curlers towering above the shrinking form of Leo Valdez, clutching his ribs. The air electrified around Jason, lightning humming through his body and waiting to serve his command.

But then the room darkened, and Jason realized with horror that Nico had never sworn like they wanted him to.

Teresa Heyman raised a plate to smash it across Leo's head, unaware of the three judges awaiting her, until she choked and stumbled back. She clutched her throat, coughing wretchedly, and everyone turned to Nico in shock. What kind of Hades' magic was this?

Except Nico stood there in horror as Percy strode forward, the air around him ionized like right before a bad thunderstorm.

"You know who you remind me of?" Percy asked, Teresa's bulging hazel eyes fixed on him as the plate shattered harmlessly against the ground. She collapsed, clawing at her chest as though to claw open her lungs. Seawater fountained from her mouth. "My old stepfather. Smelly Gabe, I called him. Used to beat me and my mom, you know. Until we killed him."

Leo tried to drag himself out of the line of fire, as horrified as the rest of them, but he just curled around himself in pain. Percy didn't notice. His head twitched.

Percy held out his hand, twisting it up. Teresa's body jerked as though against her will. The skin of her collarbone darkened, and Jason realized with dawning horror Percy had controlled her blood, bursting blood vessels in the process.

"Percy, stop!" Jason screamed. He'd thought he wanted Teresa dead, too, but now that he was watching it happen, he'd much rather her rot behind bars. He couldn't bear the thought Percy might be giving up his place in Elysium doing this.

Percy didn't seem to hear him, though, and Teresa sobbed. "Please..." she pled.

"Gabe got it easy," Percy told her. "Turned to stone. Easy, peasy. Jerk probably didn't see it coming. We sold him to the art museum, you know. Made a pretty penny. Mom went to school for writing with that money. We even moved."

"Percy, that's enough," Nico said quietly. His voice shook with fear. The wild quality of his gaze said it all: Was this how I looked?

Jason could only guess, but if he had to, he would say, No. Percy looks scarier.

"Piper!" Hazel suddenly cried, as if torn from her shock.

Piper shook her head out and called, "Percy, stop!"

But, against all odds, Percy still didn't falter. Piper's voice had brought Mother Earth low in the final moments of the war, yet, somehow, she couldn't stop Percy from killing a mortal woman?

Piper looked lost for a moment before surging forward. Jason's chest constricted with a burst of fear. What if Percy hurt her in this fit? He would never, right? Piper spun him to face her. "Perseus Jackson, stop what you're doing right now." Her voice thrummed with so much power, the AC stopped working.

And so did Percy, stumbling. He pressed the heel of his hand to his head. His eyes had gone cloudy, but now they suddenly cleared-or tried to, like he couldn't understand what had just happened.

"Wh—what—are you people?" Teresa demanded, horrified as she spat up the rest of the water in her lungs.

Will rushed to Leo's side, checking him over furiously, and Jason snapped out of his daze to fix electric eyes on Teresa. She withered when she saw him stalking up to her.

"We're Leo's family," he said, "and we're here to take him home."

* * *

Hazel knew how to work it.

And by it, Leo meant The Mist, because when the cops flooded the house, Piper telling them a desperate, adlibbed version of the horror-movie-worthy events that just unfolded in the dining room, she edited what they saw with the Mist. Everyone else went down to the station for questioning while Leo got a hospital room and his own super-legal questionnaire from a gruff BPD officer named Ed.

Leo danced around the questions about the abuse with jokes as long as he could. Ed cut that short with a sharp reprimand, and Leo gave him the short of it.

"Teresa likes things neat," he said. "Perfect. Foster kids are pretty much never perfect."

His terrified foster siblings, if he heard right from the police radio he put together with spare wires he asked super-nicely for from the pretty nurse taking his vitals, he had terrible anxiety and they helped him breathe, corroborated everything he said. They either didn't want to waste the opportunity to get away from the dangerous woman who conned the system or wanted to thank Leo for taking so many of the beatings.

He had a rib cracked in two places, a fractured eye socket that he tried very hard not to move under any circumstances, and a sprained ankle. Not the worst—not by a long shot.

He replayed the jailbreak in his mind. When he heard the door bang open like that, he knew the cavalry had arrived, and he promptly attempted to get out of dodge before Ms. Sickly Sweet realized who'd brought them down on her perfect little dollhouse.

It was a race to see who killed her first, because Jason looked just as capable of violent second-degree murder as Nico in that moment, but that Percy took home the award for MVP—Most Vicious Player. Leo couldn't get Teresa's stricken face out of his head, water overflowing out her mouth as Percy just talked, like murdering your abusive stepfather with your mother and a dangerous head wasn't anything to write home about.

Then Piper put a merciful stop to it before they had a corpse on their hands and Teresa demanded to know who these supermen were. Jason's words ricocheted around Leo's head like pinballs.

We're Leo's family, and we're here to take him home.

Leo's social worker, Ms. Hewitt, called in to apologize so profusely for not noticing the problems in that foster home before. She'll have him moved somewhere perfect as soon as they release him from the hospital.

"Can you look something up for me?" Leo asked. "See if, uh...see if there's a strawberry farm registered as a foster home. In Montauk."

"What?"

"I've been through a very traumatic experience thanks to you, Ms. Hewitt," Leo said, laying it on thick. "You wouldn't want to make it worse by denying a simple request?"

And sure enough, Chiron Brunner—he went by his real first name, seriously?—was a registered foster parent in Montauk, New York. Ms. Hewitt asked if he wanted to be transferred to his custody.

Leo stared at the pristine white walls of his hospital room, mouth dry. "Maybe." He hung up.

The hospital offered him a trauma counselor he refused. He didn't need a counselor. He never needed a counselor. Just his feet.

The nurse nodded and started to leave. "Wait!" Leo found himself calling. "Maybe...I can talk to someone. If you think it's a good idea."

An hour later, a woman with a pleasant face and violet eyes rapped lightly against the wood grain of Leo's hospital door. She walked in. "Leo Valdez?"

"Yeah," he said, feeling numb.

"I'm Deedee Charleston," she introduced. Didn't most counselors wear suits? She wore battered converse. "I'll be your therapist."

Leo winced, raising the bed into a better sitting position. His ribs did not approve. "So, doc," he said. "I hate to say it, but I think I got Penis Envy."

Most counselors got mad when he cracked jokes or accused him of redirecting attention away from his obvious behavioral problems. Ms. Charleston laughed. "My graduating class loved the Freud jokes," she explained, sitting down next to his bed. "Almost as much as the Jupiter's zipper jokes."

Leo choked, then cried out, clutching his ribs. Ms. Charleston whipped a small canteen out from inside her jacket, passing it to him. He stared. "Nectar," she said. "Swear to the highest heavens. I'd give you a solemn oath, but rumor has it you haven't had the best experiences with those." Her eyes twinkled.

Leo took a few hesitant sips. It tasted like the tamales his mother used to make. His heart hurt, but his ribs didn't as much. He looked at Ms. Charleston. "You're a half-blood?"

"Daughter of Bacchus," she said. "My siblings were good with grapes. I was good with mental health."

"Neato," Leo said. "I'm mentally fit as an ox, so—"

"I don't need to tell you your own history, Leo," she said. "Octavian tried to recruit me for his crusade when he started it, like a psych graduate of New Rome University would be any use in conquering the world, and I did my research. I moved out here when the war ended. Retired Roman demigods have had access to adequate mental help for as many years as it's existed, even before. It doesn't sound like your camp even has access to adequate quality of living after eighteen."

Leo couldn't argue with that. When Jason blithely mentioned the sprawling metropolis inside his childhood home where generations of half-bloods lived in peace, Annabeth had dropped a wrench on her foot.

"I kept my ears peeled when word spread you ran away," she said. "You have a long history of that, I've read."

Leo shrugged. "What can I say? This much awesomeness, you gotta spread it around. Can't hog the hotness." He shifted uncomfortably, grateful his ribs no longer screamed profanities at him.

"Some of your past foster homes were good for you," she pointed out. "The last one you lived in before Wilderness School put you in therapy. I took the liberty of looking up your therapist's notes before coming in." Ms. Charleston made a production of looking down at a blank sheet of paper in her lap. "Unspecified Bipolar Disorder, right? They never formally diagnosed it, though. You were supposed to talk to a psychiatrist about getting medication to help."

Leo clenched his fist, shaking.

"Reasons for the suspicion included: prolonged periods of irritability, reckless behavior exemplified by high-energy near-misses with death, prolonged periods of depressed mood. You also tended to stay up for days at a time."

"I'm an insomniac," Leo snapped. "Lots of people are insomniacs. Lots of people who aren't crazy don't sleep right. Annabeth doesn't sleep right. Percy's up at five am most nights."

"You're right," Ms. Charleston told him. Leo stopped and faced her. "I don't think your therapist was right to suspect Bipolar Disorder. Or maybe she was, but I want to explore another option first."

Leo stared at her. "Say again?"

"Have you heard of the ten personality disorders, Leo?"

All the crime shows his elderly foster grandmother used to watch with him piecing a car radio with advanced steering together flashed through his mind. "I'm not a psychopath!" he screamed.

Ms. Charleston held up her hands. "Easy," she consoled. "Easy, Leo. Antisocial Personalities are the best-known, but there are nine others."

"So what?" Leo demanded. His hair burst into flames. "You think I'm broken? You think all this is just part of a giant brokenness? You probably think I killed Mama deliberately, don't you? You probably think—"

"Leo, I don't think any of that." She calmly dumped the pitcher of water by his bed on top of his head. "I know you feel attacked right now. That's natural. It's especially natural for people coping with what I suspect you have since a little while after you lost your mother as a child."

He glared at her, water dripping off his sopping curls to the bedspread.

She lowered herself back into her chair. "Personality disorders are rarely diagnosed in someone under the age of eighteen, but you've been displaying such profound warning signs for so many years, I think it would be appropriate to make an exception now."

"Oh, really?" Leo demanded.

"There's a personality disorder people terrified of abandonment experience," she told him.

"Everyone's scared of abandonment," he shot back.

"Not everyone preemptively prevents it by abandoning others," she pointed out. "Not everyone feels everything in such excess, they sometimes want to explode." Leo wilted under her gaze, eyes fixed to the wall with a dawning feeling of terror. "Not everyone relies on a multitude of factors to define themselves at any given time because they have no consistent sense of self."

"I have a consistent sense of self," Leo said dully.

"If I asked you to define yourself for me, how would you answer?"

"I'm a mechanic," he said immediately.

"You're a lot more than a mechanic."

"I'm an engineer," he corrected. "An inventor."

"Yes," she said. "That's what you do. What else?"

"I'm one of the Seven," he elaborated.

"That was a period in your life, yes," she agreed. "What else?"

"I'm funny."

"Very, but you're also not being very funny right now, so what else?"

"I'm Calypso's—" He pulled up short, eyes watering. "I was Calypso's boyfriend."

"Was?" she asked. "And now that you're not, what are you?"

Leo choked on a sob. "I—a son of Hephaestus. I'm...I'm a son of Hephaestus. I'm the first one in a long time who can control fire."

"All brilliant things to put on a resume, Leo, but employers don't hire people for who they are as people. Stop giving me credentials. Give me something that's you. Something that doesn't rely on the outside world."

"I-I—" Leo curled into himself, gripping his hair. He shook his head. "You're wrong. I know who I am. I know...I know...I..."

She settled forward. "Would you like some help?"

He didn't answer, fighting tears.

"I think you're someone who doesn't always know who to talk to the people he really cares about, but that doesn't make him care about them any less," she said. "I think you love your friends with everything you are, so much that it sometimes feels like its own fire threatening to consume. A fire you're not immune to, and that scares you, so every time you feel yourself get too close to people, you run, because so many of the people you've loved didn't stay. Because you feel alone, but when they need you, you still come running back. And it hurts you if someone accuses you of not really caring as much as you know you do, and it hurts so much, it kinda feels like you might die if they don't stop saying you don't care. And you also sometimes wish you didn't care, because maybe things would be easier if you didn't. Maybe, if it didn't matter to you if you had someone to love you the way you think normal people get loved, everything would just hurt a little bit less."

Leo wasn't sure when he had started openly sobbing, but he had. Ms. Charleston waited for the sobs to subside, and Leo sat up, hollow. "So," he said. "I guess I really am just broken."

"Nope," she said. "It's something called Borderline Personality Disorder. BPD."

"You mean Broken Personality Disorder," he said without humor. "Stupid Leo can't even feel things right. Go figure."

"Am I broken?"

Leo's head snapped up. "What?"

She smiled. "I'm BPD, too, Leo. But I got therapy and now I'm happily married to my wife of three years."

Leo stared at her.

"It's a process," she admitted. "There will always be a part of you that reacts stronger to things than a lot of people, but here's the thing about personality disorders-they're just arbitrary decisions by society that these personality traits are too much. Everyone has parts of themselves they need to work on. Everyone can be selfish. Everyone can struggle with empathy. Everyone can be clingy or ruthless or neurotic. Everyone can be paranoid. But here's the catch."

Leo frowned.

She grinned. "Not everyone has access to ample help to get them over those parts of themselves they'd rather not look at. Not everyone can walk into a group therapy talk to discuss why they kinda feel like their neighbors are jerks even though their neighbors have never said a word to them the entire time they've lived next door. Not everyone can convince mental health professionals to take them seriously about things that really bother them on the regular. We can."

He glanced down at his lap. "So...I just do this, like, too much?" Leo couldn't believe the words spilling out of his mouth. "And, like, I can get help?" His voice caught. "I don't have to feel like I have to run all the time anymore?"

Ms. Charleston beamed. "Exactly."

We're Leo's family, and we're here to bring him home.

Leo broke out into a smile. "Where do I sign?"

* * *

When the power switch by his bed sparked, Leo knew he wouldn't have the time to hide. So he did the next best thing: he played possum.

"You're not sleeping, Leo Valdez, do not even try."

Internally, Leo wondered if maybe, Jason had spent too much with his girlfriend. Externally, he peeked one eye open. He offered Jason a sheepish smile, trying not to think about how much easier it would have been to defeat Gaea if his bestie had glared at her like that. "Hey, bro," he said. "Just thinking about—"

"What were you thinking?" Jason screeched. The power switch exploded.

"Dude!" Leo objected, throwing up a pillow that promptly caught fire off one of the sparks. He smothered it with his hand, undaunted by the heat. "You know your temper's an issue when I'm telling you to cool—"

"What the Fort Knox, Leo?" Except he said something much stronger than Fort Knox. "I thought we were enough for you. But I guess you'd much rather run away than stay with the people who love you, wouldn't you?"

The fire in Leo's belly went out. The fire in Leo's everything went out. He could only stare at Jason in horror.

"Is it because we're not machines?" Jason continued, seemingly unaware of the pain in Leo's eyes. "We're not uncomplicated like machines, so you just decide to stop dealing with us when you don't need us anymore, right? And Calypso, too? Gee, man, really thought you loved her, but hey, maybe if she was an android. Better luck next time, is that it?"

We're Leo's family, and we're here to take him home.

"Do you have the faintest idea how it felt when I heard that recording?" Jason demanded. "And if my feelings don't matter to you, fine. Festus has been nonfunctional from grief. I've never seen a person that depressed in my entire life, and Festus is one of those machines you prefer so much. Then again, maybe that's why you left him. He got to be too human for you."

We're Leo's family, and we're here to take him home.

"I started having trouble with Piper, you know. First thing to pop into my head is, you know who would be great to talk to right now? Leo. Too bad he ditched us." Jason had little bursts of yellow electricity arcing from his gold hair, grown out flatteringly. Leo really hated how much more attractive his friend was than him. He bet Calypso would love if Jason did break up with Piper. Then she could have him—Leo Valdez 2.0. The hero who hit all the criteria: handsome, brave, chivalrous, and best yet, never ran away from his problems. "Then again, we started having problems because you'd run, but semantics, right?"

We're Leo's family, and we're here to take him home.

"And what I really can't believe is that you'd rather go back to that than-"

"STOP!" We're Leo's family, and we're here to take him home. "You think any of this is easy for me?" We're Leo's family, and we're here to take him home. "You think I like to leave every time things get good? You think it's my secret life aspiration to never have a place to belong in this whole broken world?" We're Leo's family, and we're here to take him home. "I hate everything. I hate myself. I hate you. I hate camp. I hate the others. I hate the whole stupid world because I can't hate it, and I just want to feel like a normal person when I'm upset, but something's off about my brain, so I can't, and I hate that you will probably calm down in however long and it won't just be pent up in the back of your mind where you can't acknowledge it and can't forget it. I hate that you have girl problems like a normal person and your entire world doesn't feel like it's ending worse than when Gaea came back. I hate that even you and Piper do break up, you'll be torn up about it, but you won't fall the Fort Knox apart." Leo didn't say Fort Knox that time either. "You won't disappear because everything in the whole world feels like it's just another reason not to stay. You won't look at every friendship you have like it's a cheap imitation of the real thing, because you're healthy, Jason. You see the world like you're not broken. But I am, Jason. I'm completely broken. I'm so broken, they have an entire name for how broken I am!" Leo was sobbing again, and he hated it. "But Deedee says I could get better. You know, with support. Understanding. Patience. But you were lying when you said you guys were my family, weren't you? You're not family. You're just the people I hung out with for laughs, but I'm not funny anymore, so you don't want me. You just want someone easy. You want a machine. You want a program that's just funny all the time without exception. I just want to feel, for three seconds, like I'm not DYING INSIDE BECAUSE I CAN'T FIND ANYONE TO LOVE ME!"

The bedspread burst into flames. Jason yelped, running over to the refilled pitcher of ice water by Leo's bed. He dumped it over the fire. He summoned a really, really sudden gust of wind to extinguish the rest.

And then Jason just stood there, staring at him, and no one moved. Leo didn't even breathe. They just waited, too skittish animals waiting for the other one to give them a reason to bolt.

"I didn't know," Jason said after no fewer than seven minutes. Seven-the Chinese number of the dead. Frank told Leo that. It had been one of the things that lit the way for him to know how to save the day.

Leo shook it off. "Yeah. Well. Now you do." He didn't look at Jason. He couldn't. What would he even see? Horror? Guilt? Pity? He couldn't live with any of those.

"Who's Deedee?"

"My therapist." Leo hugged himself. "She says there's therapy for it. DBT."

"What's that?"

"Means I get individual and group therapy with her. Something about that helping her help me interact with people better."

Jason didn't say anything for a while. "What did she diagnose you with?"

"BPD."

Jason's eyes widened. "They literally named something Broken?"

Despite himself, Leo laughed. It sounded a little crazed. "No. Borderline. Borderline Personality Disorder."

"And that...that means you feel...like that?"

Leo glanced up at him in alarm. "Seriously?"

Jason looked afraid. "Oh, schist. I said something else wrong, didn't I? I'm really bad at this comforting people thing. I should get Piper in here. Or-"

"That's not it." Leo shifted toward him. "Nothing about it being a personality disorder?"

The equations added up in Jason's eyes—or, well, maybe they only did that in Leo's head when something stopped being weird. "Oh." Jason sat down awkwardly. "Dude, I know you. I mean...I forgot that, I guess. For a moment. But I was mad. And hurt. But I know you're not some, like...some psychopath."

Leo stared down at the bed. "And you're...you're cool? With me being...?"

"Totally." Leo looked up to see Jason beaming at him. "And, like...can we please forget how horribly insensitive I just was? Because...yikes. Kinda makes me want you to build a time machine just so I can go back and smack that self-righteous prickly-pear across his self-righteous face." Jason didn't say prickly-pear.

And Leo couldn't not burst out laughing there, hugging his middle as it just bubbled out of him with gusto. Jason joined in for a while, both of them tearing up from the force of their amusement. Their chortles died away after a while.

Jason watched Leo for a moment. "Calypso is heartbroken," he told him. "I don't think she knows whether to blame herself or blame you. No one did."

Leo winced. "Yeah," he said. "I...I need to talk to her. About a lot of things."

We're Leo's family, Jason had said, and we're here to bring him home.

For the first time, Leo felt those words come alive in the heart of him. And just maybe, he could learn how to believe that as much as they did.

* * *

Calypso was at the barrier when Argus drove Leo, Jason, Piper, Nico and Will back to Camp Half-Blood. Everyone took the cue to make themselves scarce.

Leo stood there awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I've started therapy," he told her. "I'm...I'm gonna get better."

Calypso nodded, tugging on her braid. "Good," she said. "That's good."

"I won't do this again," he said. "I mean..." He gulped. "I don't want to." He winced. The group advised complete transparency with his relationships. No more chucking dirty laundry into the closet and slamming the door on it. "Cal, I...I need time." He looked at her pleadingly. "I really, really need time. For me. And then..."

Calypso smiled faintly. "Then we'll talk." She kissed his cheek. "And I'll be waiting."

Leo beamed. He couldn't help it, not as Calypso knotted their fingers together and raced down the hill, laughing contagiously as she dragged him to catch up with the others.

For once, he didn't look back.


End file.
